Poetelian law.(6) The right freely to dispose of property, which according to the earliest Roman law was accorded to the owner in his lifetime but in the case of death had hitherto been conditional on the consent of the community, was liberated from this restriction, inasmuch as the law of the Twelve Tables or its interpretation assigned to the private testament the same force as pertained to that confirmed in the curies.  This was an important step towards the breaking up of the clanships, and towards the full carrying out of individual liberty in the disposal of property.  The fearfully absolute paternal power was restricted by the enactment, that a son thrice sold by his father should not relapse into his power, but should thenceforth be free; to which—­by a legal inference that, strictly viewed, was no doubt absurd—­was soon attached the possibility that a father might voluntarily divest himself of dominion over his son by emancipation.  In the law of marriage civil marriage was permitted;(7) and although the full marital power was associated as necessarily with a true civil as with a true religious marriage, yet the permission of a connection instead of marriage,(8) formed without that power, constituted a first step towards relaxation of the full power of the husband.  The first step towards a legal enforcement of married life was the tax on old bachelors (-aes uxorium-) with the introduction of which Camillus began his public career as censor in 351.

Administration of Justice—­
Code of Common Law—­
New Judicial Functionaries

Changes more comprehensive than those effected in the law itself were introduced into—­what was more important in a political point of view, and more easily admitted of alteration—­the system of judicial administration.  First of all came the important limitation of the supreme judicial power by the embodiment of the common law in a written code, and the obligation of the magistrate thenceforth to decide no longer according to varying usage, but according to the written letter, in civil as well as in criminal procedure (303, 304).  The appointment of a supreme magistrate in Rome exclusively for the administration of justice in 387,(9) and the establishment of separate police functionaries which took place contemporaneously in Rome, and was imitated under Roman influence in all the Latin communities,(10) secured greater speed and precision of justice.  These police-magistrates or aediles had, of course, a certain jurisdiction at the same time assigned to them.  On the one hand, they were the ordinary civil judges for sales concluded in open market, for the cattle and slave markets in particular; and on the other hand, they ordinarily acted in processes of fines and amercements as judges of first instance or—­which was in Roman law the same thing—­as public prosecutors.  In consequence of this the administration of the laws imposing fines, and the equally indefinite and politically important right of fining in general, were